Commentary

“You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice //
If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice //
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill //
I will choose a path as clear. I will choose free will”

This chorus really bothers me. The concept of making a choice has an implied adjunct of options. That is, there are limited things to choose from. Free will implies that each individual can make up their mind, and yes, I would agree with that for the most part, but the choices are limited and unaffected by the chooser.

The idea of choosing free will is simply preposterous, because the choice is being made in order to express the chooser’s freedom, yet in choosing it, the chooser is accepting that it isn’t something innate to him. Does this not seem a bizarre contradiction to everyone else? On a side note the music to this song, as with the majority of Rush songs, is unbelievable. Anyway I am not certain that Neil Peart didn’t have some sort of ironic reason for saying this the way he did, but it really bugs me at face value.

(This was written a while ago, but I thought I would port it to this blog)

Watching Santana blow the world away on this just inspired me to ridiculous heights. I really, at this point, began to identify myself with the music community, and promised myself that one day I would do the same thing, in some capacity. I will play on the Grammies one day.

(This was written a while ago, but I thought I would port it to this blog)

Before I had heard of this song most people told me about how great it was, the saviour of mankind, etc. But when I first heard it, the only thing that stood out to me was the guitar riff. So I learned it, but because the vocal track sounded so cheesy, I never really got into the song. Anyway, now as I listen to it, and that usually tends to be while I am driving, I always imagine that it would be the song that I would die in a car wreck while listening to. It just gives me that sense of irony that no one would ever know how fitting it was to my death but me. Anyway, the part where the octave-higher vocals come in now gives me goosebumps, and at the end when he is singing something over a continuous ascent of notes and it finally resolves, well that part is amazing.

(This was written a while ago, but I thought I would port it to this blog)

I have mentioned in various forums that this song was a big influence on me on my “Unnatural” album. That was mainly because the drums are amazingly well done–and for a long time I couldn’t even figure out how they were being played. Anyhow, there is a moment of metaphorical, poetical genius in this song that makes me wish I could one time reach such a profound level of connectivity with my words, without leaving the metaphor as when Sting says:

“Woke up this morning // Can’t believe what I saw // Hundred billion bottles // Washed up on the shore”

This line is perfect, simply put. It just amazes me how that particular line tells me so many things without telling me any of them.

(This was written a long time ago, but I thought I would port it to this blog)

I will unhesitantly classify this as one of my favorite all time albums. Yes, I listened to it religiously during a very interesting part of my life (my mid teens), and it has always spoken to me. It may very well be one of my biggest producers, so to speak.

Anyway, I didn’t even fully appreciate it until I started making my own music, and I realized how incredibly adept this album is musically. The bass player alone will bring you to your knees, and the lyrics have such a beautiful subtle satire and cynicism that I don’t think I could ever master a work so perfect. Every song just tells me something new.

(This commentary was written a long time ago, but I thought I would port it to this blog)